System Restore Point & Vista's New Uninstall

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover there were so many frugal Good Booters. But I was surprised and pleased at how many sent a thank you for my freeware suggestions along with their seasons greetings.

In fact, there was so much interest in quality, productive freeware, while I was waiting for Santa I put together a CD of 125 of my favorite state of the art freeware with an illustrated catalogue describing each freeware program. I’ll have it available at my seminars.

I do want to reiterate the importance of establishing a System Restore Point before installing a freeware program or for that matter, any software program. I also suggest once a program has been installed you open it and do a bit of a walk about to insure it’s performing as expected.

And by the way, for those former Xpers struggling with Vista’s new look, should you decide to uninstall a program, any program, do this:
1. Click Start > Control Panel.
2. Click Programs > Uninstall a Program.
3. Click on the program to uninstall and follow directions.
For those who have become Vista users, one more suggestion. Before you install any program, new or one you had installed on a computer with a previous version of Windows, visit the software’s Web site. A few minutes at a software program’s Web site to determine if the program is Vista ready or requires a Vista update just might save you hours of grief.

For example many Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 users found although the program installed without incident and seemed at first to be functioning as expected, it eventually caused problems. In some cases, very serious problems. Had they visited Adobe’s Web site before installing Elements 5 they’d have discovered there’s a Vista update download - version 5.0.2.

And apropos of Good Booters enthusiasm. The response to Dwayne Alton’s free seminar on digital photography at our December meeting was extraordinary. So enthusiastic was the response, I’ve persuaded Dwayne to host a series of digital photography seminars. His next seminar (January 10th at 6:00 PM at Lee Memorial Hospital auditorium) will be devoted to video cameras and video photography. As I did for our first seminar, I invite you to bring your video camera if you have a specific question or concern.

Please know because Dwayne’s seminars are free and open to the public, seating is on a first come bases.

Here’s wishing you a Good Boot.